Modern Love Story

June 8, 1986|By Nancy Pate, Sentinel Book Critic

Several of last year's more critically acclaimed novels are available in paperback.

Slow Dancing, by Elizabeth Benedict (McGraw-Hill, $4.95): What happens when a supposedly casual fling between two career professionals turns out to be the real thing? The answer to that question lies at the center of Benedict's moving, beautifully written first novel. The realistic main characters, torn between their conflicting needs for independence and connection, are Lexie, an immigration lawyer, Nell, her best friend who is writing a book about single women, and David, a divorced journalist. Theirs is a love story for the '80s.

PRIZE-WINNING FICTION

Face, by Cecile Pineda (Penguin, $5.95): Based on an actual incident, this poetic and powerful first novel tells of a young Brazilian barber horribly disfigured in an accident. Treated as an outcast, he retreats to his mother's ancestral village. There, with the help of stolen medical manuals, the man proceeds to reconstruct his face himself. The book recently was awarded the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

FLORIDA DREAMS

Continental Drift, by Russell Banks (Ballantine, $4.50): In this absorbing vision of contemporary America, Banks charts the converging lives of two people seeking their dreams in Florida. One is a blue-collar worker from New Hampshire; the other is a Haitian refugee.

A SPIRITED ADVENTURE

The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, by Carol Hill (Penguin, $6.95): Energy and high spirits radiate in the dazzling adventures of Amanda Jarworksi, a roller-skating astronaut and sub-particle physicist. When Schrodinger, Amanda's narcoleptic cat, is space-napped, Amanda abandons her mission to Mars and goes in search of him. It's an intergalactic romp, spiced with sex, humor and unfailing intelligence.

TELLING TALE WITH PASSION

The Lover, by Marguerite Duras (Harper & Row/ Perrenial Library, $5.95): Set in colonial Saigon, this autobiographical novel tells of the overwhelming attraction between a 15-year-old French girl and her forbidden Chinese lover. Duras' prose is dreamy and austere, but she creates an atmosphere of great passion.